Creature-Hunter Organization

Gods will fall, humanity will rise...

"They counted on the humans to hide, to give up, to fail. They never considered our ability to stand, to endure, that we'd rise to the challenge."

— Raleigh Beckett, Pacific Rim

A plot trope that involves a fantastic version of the most basic conflicts: Man vs. Beast.

In a World…^note usually without the Masquerade where humanity is terrorized by a race of nigh invulnerable behemoths. Humanity is at a disadvantage, but at some point, they discover their enemies' weakness, and now have a fighting chance. And thus begins the tale of their struggle.

The most basic form of this is that a certain organization is in charge of recruiting people and equipping them with a specific set of equipment and/or skills vital to exploiting the weaknesses of the monsters they are fighting. In cases where there is a Masquerade, their purpose is to uphold it by preventing Muggles from discovering the existence of such monsters.

The organization is usually the only one of its kind, but within a global reach there will often be "branches." Size and scope also vary. They can be as large and publicized as the military, but an Oddly Small Organization or a small The Squad/Five-Man Band would also do.

There usually isn't a prerequisite for its recruits; as long as they can fight, they can join. In verses that rely on Applied Phlebotinum, compatibility with the phlebotinum is the only requirement, and you usually cannot refuse to join them, especially if compatible people are rare.

The monsters are usually characterized by being non-sentient beasts that devour or destroy humans or resources which make them a direct threat. Sometimes though, they are sentient but Always Chaotic Evil with little regard for self-preservation. Whatever their flavor, they're out to multiply and destroy, and our heroes' job is to stop them from doing so.

The monsters' origin usually varies from being simply aliens, a result of Creating Life Gone Horribly Wrong, a mutant strain of an existing lifeform, a beastly sort of Henchmen Race created by the Big Bad, coming from a single Hellgate, or simply just popping out of nowhere. Whatever their origin, there will already be quite a lot of them already by the time the story kicks in.

Whatever their origin, they will always have Nigh-Invulnerability or a Healing Factor that makes them hard to kill. This doesn't mean they are invincible though. These monsters usually have an Achilles' Heel — usually in the form of Applied Phlebotinum that is the only thing that can harm them (which our organization would exploit as weapons), or a certain weak point in their body, which is usually a core placed in a strategic part of its body.

This trope has two common variations:

• Kaiju Killing Corps — Man vs Giant Beasts. They use conventional equipment like Mechas, Powered Armor or airplanes (or the closest Not Quite Flight or Giant Flyer alternative) to fight giants.
• Phlebotinum-Based Hunter Organization — Man vs Abstract Eater (or Horde of Alien Locusts). They use Weapon of X-Slaying (Depleted Phlebotinum Shells or Phlebotinum-powered) to fight the invaders. They may or may not have support equipment (e.g. A Mini-Mecha or Powered Armor to use BFSes). Common variations include Spirits, The Heartless or Made of Evil or Made of Magic Creatures.

Remember, for the trope to count:

• There must be an organization, or at the very least a team. Solo examples count if they have a group backing them, or at least, it is implied they have offscreen members.
• The monsters must be impersonal "forces of nature" — as in, like the Generic Doomsday Villain, they are largely defined by the threat they pose rather than their motivations. Ones with sentient higher ups or ones with a bunch of sentient monsters of the same kind still count.
• The monsters may or may not have a weakness. Their having a single origin or kind is more important than them having a weakness, whether Weaponized Weakness or Achilles' Heel.

Within the subtropes, there is the common element of "being imprisoned". Whether by a literal wall (like in Attack on Titan or God Eater Burst) or by humanity being forced to live in Citadel Cities (like in The Matrix or Strike Witches) due to relentless attacks by the monsters. The plot will usually involve the organization finding ways for humanity to live outside these "walls" and have character dream about how The World Is Just Awesome and that they and everyone else need to see it.

Sub-Trope of Hunter of Monsters. Sister Trope to Bug War, which is about humanity in general fighting Big Creepy-Crawlies or Horde of Alien Locusts, and may or may not employ this trope. Compare Who You Gonna Call?, for an organization that tackles the supernatural in general in an otherwise normal world. Contrast Anti-Human Alliance, where a group of aliens, monsters and non-human creatures team up against humans. See also The Men in Black, an organization tasked with upholding the Masquerade. A particularly successful organization that wipes out a species may cross over with The Great Exterminator.

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Examples

Anime & Manga

• Attack on Titan: Soldiers equipped with 3D Maneuver Gear^note 3DMG is a lower-back-mounted compressed-air powered spool device for feeding wires to a pair of belt-mounted Grappling Hook Pistols controlled through two triggers on the handle of a pair of swords with detachable blades which are ejected via a handlebar. The gas is carried through a pair of canisters tied on thigh-mounted spare blade carriers. vs. Titans. They also employ other weapons like cannons, but the 3DMG is their main equipment; as it gives them the most mobility without actually flying to reach the titans' weak point: the back of their necks. The titans are simply giant, creepy Humanoid Abominations with no discernible intelligence and few behavioral traits aside from a desperate desire to eat humans. Though there are some exceptions.
• Bleach: The Gotei 13 portrays itself as an organisation whose duty it is to protect humanity from the threat of hollows, human souls that have turned evil due Unfinished Business literally eating out the heart of their soul. However, the Shinigami were originally Balancers, monitoring the flow of souls between the World of the Living and the Soul Society. At some point they fell from their original purpose and became hollow-hunters, although they do retain at least one of their original abilities in the form of Soul Burial. Despite their current path, only the low-ranked Shinigami engage in hollow-hunting to obtain the experience necessary for dealing with threats to the Shinigami rather than to humanity. They therefore struggle to combat the threat to humanity, resulting in humans with power of their own to band together to produce the Quincies (the "Destroyers") to protect humans from hollows where Shinigami couldn't. Unfortunately, their method of fighting threatens the Balance of the World. As a result, the Quincies and Shinigami are at war with each other, benefiting no-one.
• The organization Red Shield from Blood+ has made it its mission to chase the chiropterans.
• Blue Exorcist features the Order of the True Cross, a worldwide organization dedicated to hunting down and exorcising demons that prey on humans. They're mostly content to leave the peaceful ones alone; some members even rely on them to fight.
• In the setting of Blue Gender, Big Creepy-Crawlies known as the Blue have taken over the world. Mankind's greatest hope for survival lies with the military, who combat the Blue using Mini-Mecha called Armor Shrikes.
• Buso Renkin: While the stated mission of the Alchemist Army is to oversee all aspects of alchemy worldwide, and to create the Philosopher’s Stone, the fact that alchemical research has been at a standstill for centuries means that their everyday role is to hunt down and destroy the man-eating homunculi created by insane alchemists.
• Chainsaw Man has the Public Safety Devil Hunters Bureau, a Government Agency of Fiction dedicated to Demon Slaying. Since they work for the government, nearly every member is a Badass in a Nice Suit.
• The titular warriors in Claymore are chimeric female supersoldiers designed to fight demons known as "yoma" and their evolved forms, giant monsters called Awakened Beings. The procedure to become a Claymore gives the user enhanced strength, speed, and abilities, but at great cost. This all turns out to be a front, as the Organization is actually breeding monsters in order to fight dragons.
• The Power is the organization responsible for protecting the moving city of Deca-Dence from the threat of the Gadoll, an alien life-form that threatens to destroy life on Earth. They train, arm, and provide incentives for the Gears and the handful of human Tankers that fight alongside them. The truth, of course, is a lot less glamorous and sinister than that.
• The Demon Slayer Corps from Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba have been fighting and killing demons basically for as long as anyone can remember in order to protect humanity. Strictly speaking, they're supposed to exterminate any and all demons that they become aware of, but during the events of the series they've softened a little bit, though not without controversy within their own ranks. Namely, Tanjiro is a member of the Corps mainly because his family was killed by a demon and his sister Nezuko was turned into a demon during the attack but she's been conditioned to defend humans instead of attack them; the leader of the Corps was aware of this and okay'd it, but not everyone else was and were perfectly willing to kill Nezuko and Tanjiro for their perceived betrayal.
• D.Gray-Man has the Exorcists from the Black Order with their Innocence vs Akuma. The innocence themselves are completely non-uniform and can be anything, but are capable of morphing and evolving. They fight the Akuma, who are created when a living human in mourning over the loss of a loved one makes a contract with the Millenium Earl to bring the soul of said lost loved one back. They goes around killing in order to grow and evolve to become stronger and better serve the Earl's purpose. Innocence, also known as The Crystal of God is a strange substance that can bind with humans called Accomodators to form anti-akuma-weapons which come as Equipment type, Crystal type, and Parasitic type used in fighting Akuma.
• Gaist Crusher is a very simplistic take on this. Humanity has harvested powerful minerals called Gaimetals, but an alien threat seems to be turning them into violent monsters called Gaist. In order to combat them, the government has established the Gaist Crushers, humans using Powered Armor made of Gaimetal to fight. They're all very young for some reason, and the main character gets recruited after being forced to don Gaist Crusher gear in an emergency situation.
• Gantz is a Deadly Game where the players are equipped with alien technology and sent to destroy aliens of various shapes and sizes hiding on Earth. The players' equipment includes special suits that give the wearer superhuman strength, absurdly sharp, blade elongating katanas, and guns that shoot invisible, Painfully Slow Projectiles powerful enough to turn their target into Ludicrous Gibs. Later it's revealed that the purpose of the game is to train soldiers capable of fighting an upcoming Alien Invasion by a race of giant-sized aliens. The technology used by the players comes from alien races previously exterminated by the invading alien race.
• In Inuyasha, there used to be a group of people dedicated to exterminate the Youkai who were causing mayhem in the villages. During a gory attack orchestrated by Naraku, all of them except two were killed. The two survivors are Sango and her brother Kohaku.
• Neon Genesis Evangelion: NERV is an organization that uses EVAs to fight an alien race known as the Angels. The reason Angels can't be destroyed by conventional weapons is because they sport AT-fields, Deflector Shields that can completely block even the explosive power of a multi-megaton bomb. The most efficent way to penetrate the AT-field is stated to be via close combat, for which the EVAs use high-frequency vibrating "Progressive Knives". The EVAs can even build up an AT-field of their own, and eventually it's revealed that the EVAs are actually created by cloning them from the same source the Angels themselves were born. The troops themselves are just three "Children" (which is also singular in-universe), who are the only ones capable of piloting said mecha... and they have issues to take care about themselves.
• From Nobunagun, there is DOGOO, an organization formed specifically fight against aliens designated as Evolutionary Invasion Objects. They fight these with super powered individuals who are the genetic reincarnations of famous historical individuals.
• The Magical Girl Warriors of Puella Magi Madoka Magica use their phlebotinum-powered weapons to fight Witches, dangerous Eldritch Abominations whose reality warping pose threats to humanity. What Kyubey, the critter who gave them their power, doesn't tell them is that every magical girl is doomed to become a witch due to the way that magic works in this universe.
• In Seraph of the End: Vampire Reign, Earth's population is decimated by a virus, and the survivors are attacked by monsters or enslaved by vampires. Elite members of the army are able to make contracts with demons to earn phlebotinum weapons which are the only things capable of killing vampires.
• The Sky Girls are Japan's main line of defense against the setting's remaining WORMs (Weapon Of Raid Machines). They are Older Than They Look girls chosen for their compatibility to the available Sonic Divers, Transforming Mecha with plane and bipedal modes, ideal for high-speed travel and aerial combat. The WORMs are artificial lifeforms consisting of millions of nanocells that take the forms of creatures they see. The girls are required to wear Latex Space Suit made of nanocells for protection because of this.
• In the anime version of Soul Eater, the DWMA was founded to train Meisters and Weapons (who power up by eating souls) to hunt "Demon Eggs" (humans who have become corrupted by consuming the souls of the innocent), Kishin (Eldritch Abominations that form from said humans when they get too powerful) and their strongest, Kishin Asura, as well as Witches (from whom the weapons originally got their abilities). This trope didn't strictly apply to the manga, as it had no concept of Demon Eggs, and the DWMA hunted anyone Lord Death considered evil enough to need to die. Many of them just happened to be very inhuman looking.
• The Strike Witches are one of the many squads of witches equipped with vehicle mountable guns who wear Striker Units against "The Neuroi". Striker Units are plane enginesque legwear that amplifies their magic and allows them to fly^note there are also tank-like variant for ground-based combat and project Force Fields to guard against Neuroi attacks which include Frickin' Laser Beams, bullets, and full-on Wave-Motion Gun. The Neuroi are aliens which take the form of huge aircrafts (pic◊) and literally consume swaths of the earth to gain their power.
• Symphogear has the Mobile Disaster Response Corps who have the so called "Valkyries", girls attuned to mysterious crystals called Relic, which allows them to transform said crystals into Powered Armor which comes with free weapons via singing — which amplifies the inherent but dormant powers of the crystal. They fight the Noise, aliens which vaguely take the shape of earth creatures and have Natural Weapon. They do not follow the law of conservation of energy and disintegrate any humans along with themselves if they come into direct contact with one.
• The Ganmen of Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann are Humongous Mecha which were originally used in lunar resource exploration, but were repurposed to battle the Anti-Spirals' Ashtanga during the time of Lordgenome as their leader. Until he had to back down and force humanity underground. as goons by the Beastmen to keep humans from living in the surface.
• The Commission of Counter-Ghoul (CCG) in Tokyo Ghoul has very intentionally cultivated this trope to their advantage. The organization brands itself as the upholders of justice and protectors of humanity, while enforcing the idea that Ghouls are inhuman monsters to be killed on sight. Because Ghouls are highly resistant to most conventional weaponry, Ghoul Investigators employ special weapons called Quinque to kill Ghouls. These weapons are made by harvesting the predatory organ of a Ghoul, and building it into some sort of weapon system. In reality, there are peaceful Ghouls that merely want to live quietly, or even actively enjoy the company of humans, whom the investigators mercilessly torture and slaughter anyway, while the organization itself is involved in some very shady activities such as deliberately preserving the Forever War between humans and ghouls. As for the Quinque, those are frequently recognized by loved ones and used as a form of sadistic psychological warfare.
• World Trigger features the Border Defense Agency against the aliens called Neighbors, who's members use the aliens' own Trion energy powered weapons called Trigger. Their members are people who have high trion levels. The BDA was formed specifically to defend against the neighbors. Although it was revealed in the first episode that what they were fighting were actually just their drones called Trion Soldiers and that the neighbors are actually Humanoid Aliens.

Comic Books

• Artemis: Requiem sees the title character team up with an organization of demon hunters known as the Hellenders. She returns to Wonder Woman (1987) on a mission to kill Etrigan, unaware her organization has been mislead about him as part of a plot by Neron to kill Diana.
• Hellboy has the B.P.R.D. (Bureau of Paranormal Research and Defence) which is dedicated to protecting humanity from the supernatural threats.
• The Marvel Universe has the Monster Hunters, who are Exactly What It Says on the Tin. They were (via Retcon) a team that operated in the days before the Fantastic Four, when Marvel Earth seemed to be under constant attack from giant monsters.
• In Scare Tactics (DC Comics), The Graveyard Shift is a group of religious fanatics whose mission is to eradicate vampires. They killed most of the Skorzeny vampires in Markovia but Nina Skorzeny was able to escape. They tracked Nina to America but many of their number were killed when they ran afoul of an ancient vampire while tracking her.
• Vampirella:
  • During the 90s, Vampirella was allied with the Danse Macabre, an organization that fought supernatural threats with considerably more extreme measures. A later run in 2001, introduced a covert branch of the FBI tasked with fighting supernatural threats called the World's End Circus.
  • The Catholic Exorcism Initiative Office (OCEI) is another organization dedicated to fighting supernatural evils. Yes, they also enlist Warrior Nuns. Vampirella has occasionally allied with them as well, but it's significantly more teeth-clenched; while she's a Hunter Of Her Own Kind, several priests consider her a borderline abomination as well.
• Wynonna Earp is a descendant of the famous lawman Wyatt Earp and the top special agent for a special unit known within the US Marshals as The Monster Squad, battling supernatural threats, and taking care of some outstanding Earp family business along the way, alongside her fellow Marshals.

Fan Works

• Cheating Death: Those That Lived: Played for Laughs when President Orion has to bribe Dollar to tell a lie about her arena, and her price is that he establish a zombie-fighting branch of the Peacekeepers even though there aren't any actual zombies outside of Dollar's arena.
• Hunting Series: The hunters are actually a group of loosely organized rebels around the Matrix's version of the world that delete 'supernatural' programs that kill innocent people. Examples of smaller teams are Sam/Jessica and formerly the team of John Winchester and Bobby Singer.

Films — Animated

• Monsters vs. Aliens: General Monger leads a covert ops team that captures monsters and confines them in a secret base to keep the populace safe. Later, the monsters themselves become one such team, sent to battle an Alien Invasion.

Films — Live-Action

• Ghostbusters (1984): The Ghostbusters are a four-man team, capturing ghosts one at a time before squaring off against Gozer.
• John Carpenter's Vampires involves a group of vampire hunters out to stop the head vampire from getting a cross which will let him go out in the sun. There are other vampire hunting teams all around the world, all funded by the Catholic church.
• The Matrix franchise:
  • In The Matrix, Neo and the rest of the Red Pills fight against The Agents of The Matrix. who try to uphold the Masquerade within the Cyberspace for the Machines. their "real world" counterparts are The Sentinels mentioned under Kaiju Killing Corps.
  • In The Matrix Reloaded and The Matrix Revolutions, the Machines' main force for hunting humans in the real world are Sentinels, killer robots resembling cephalopods. In the human city of Zion, Captian Mifune leads a defense force of Armored Personnel Units, capable of dual-wielding guns big enough to take down the Sentinels. (Humans working outside can use EMPs to defend themselves from Sentinels, but for a variety of reasons, those are not practical to use anywhere near Zion.) This becomes a major plot point in Revolutions, when an army of Sentinels invades Zion, and Captain Mifune's team is the main line of defense.
• MonsterVerse: Subverted with Monarch. The organization was originally formed by the government and military with the explicit end-task of finding ways to exterminate any Titans they discovered, but Monarch's own operatives tend to grow to admire and even revere the creatures after studying them up close, and they recognize both Godzilla and Kong as protectors of humanity against the more hostile Titans as well as the human race's only liable line of defence. Combine that with Monarch's findings that the Titans are essentially crucial antibodies to the Earth's ecosphere which human life can't survive without. By the start of Godzilla: King of the Monsters (2019), Monarch's top brass are actively in a legal battle opposing the government's mounting pressure to see all the Titans indiscriminately exterminated. Apex Cybernetics in Godzilla vs. Kong see themselves as this or at least make themselves out to be this with their anti-Titan Muggle Power plan, but in reality they're nothing more than obscenely hubristic and amoral bastards using Muggle Power as an excuse for their own selfish and thoroughly villainous end-goals.
• In The Monster Club, The Blini, or The B-Squad, are a division of the police responsible for investigating blood-based crimes. Unfortunately, their methods often result in Van Helsing Hate Crimes.
• Pacific Rim: Giant, city-destroying monsters (actually called "Kaiju" in-universe) emerge from a portal on the floor of the Pacific Ocean. The governments of the world realize that these Kaiju aren't going to stop coming, and that conventional weapons aren't suited to kill them without massive collateral damage. So the Jaeger program—consisting of Humongous Mecha, each piloted by two brain-linked humans—is created to deal with the threat. However, by the time of the film, the Jaeger program is about to be shut down in favor of a massive Anti-Kaiju Wall, thanks to the increasing lethality of the Kaiju making the Jaegers too expensive to continue using. Unsurprisingly, the Wall is utterly ineffective in keeping the Kaiju out.
• Vampirella: Adam Van Helsing and his father are a part of P.U.R.G.E., an organization dedicated to fighting vampires.

Literature

• D.I.A.P.P., the Division for the Investigation and Appropriation of Paranormal Phenomena from Angel of Death, is a division of the US government who, among other things, work to combat the numerous liches who go about devouring human souls.
• Played with in Date A Live. The Amazon Brigade Anti-Spirit Team is tasked of fighting the Spirits, Person of Mass Destruction that has been causing phenomena called Spacequakes— which are "earth" quakes IN SPACE.^note Actually just quakes not occurring on the ground but on the atmosphere. The thing is, they are horribly ineffective at fighting the spirits (except for the two elites among them, who are One Women Armies) since the spirits have powerful Deflector Shields. This trope is subverted in two ways: one, the spirits are sentient and can be reasoned with. They can also have their powers sealed, reducing them into normal humans. so there really isn't much reason fighting them (unless they're psychos). And two, the AST has their rival organization: Ratatoskr, who decided to have someone date these spirits to submission, since they conveniently all happen to be girls. This is because their leader is also sort of one, and had her powers sealed as well.
• Dragonriders of Pern is set on a human colony-world that has shunned technology, so a native life-form that looked like miniature dragons were genetically engineered and used as planes to fight against the lifeform called "Thread", which normally lives in deep space but occasionally Falls on Pern, where it will eat anything made of organic material.
• The Milites Dei in The Fey and the Fallen is a Church Militant monster-hunting organization dedicated to killing demons. Unfortunately, they can't tell the difference between actual demons and faeries...
• Haruhi Suzumiya has the Agency, a mysterious group of psychics who fight manifestations of Haruhi's teen angst in a Phantom Zone of sorts. It Makes Sense in Context.
• The Covenant in InCryptid see themselves as this, but they actually end up being Van Helsing Hate Crimes Knight Templars. Humans are nowhere near endangered, but plenty of sapient and non-sapient cryptids are thanks to the Covenant exterminating anything they see as "monsters".
• Journey to Chaos:
  • The Dragon's Lair warrior guild trains its members in the use of mercenary magic and combat spirit techniques for the purpose of fighting monsters. With these skills, they can leave walled cities to trim the monster population and escort civilians. These monsters are all mindless carnivores (even the plants) because of the mana addling their brains.
  • The ICDMM (International Community Dedicated to Mana Mutation) sends out field agents to collect monsters (dead or alive) for the purpose of dissection and experimentation. Their goal is to understand mana mutation so that they can cure and/or treat it.
• The titular Knights of the Borrowed Dark specialise in battling Tenebrous, extradimensional shadow monsters breaking into our world from the Tenebrae. Members are The Chosen Many, wielding speech-based light powers, though the organisation goes out of its way to avoid conscription, giving unwilling Knights enough training to keep control of their powers before letting them go their own way. Most choose to join, even though members tend to die young, brave and alone.
• Monster Hunter International: The titular Private Military Contractors for one. The Monster Control Bureau is a corrupt government version. The UK and the Vatican are revealed to have similar organizations.
• The shadowhunters in The Mortal Instruments are also such an organization. They are nephilim, and have the task of protecting humanity from the demons. But also from evil vampires, werewolves, fairies and warlocks. In their past, the shadowhunters were far from good.
• The Bright Cross Disaster Prevention Foundation from My Vampire Older Sister and Zombie Little Sister. Publicly, they're a charity organisation that provides relief to victims of disasters. Privately, they specialize in hunting down and executing Archenemies (the setting's name for supernatural beings like vampires and zombies), seeing them as another "disaster". But it's later revealed that the organisation was originally founded by Archenemies, to direct and control the anti-Archenemy sentiment of humans.
• Graham Masterton's Night Warriors series is about a loose network of individuals chosen by God to protect humanity from evil supernatural forces (mostly of demonic origin). Since their enemies can haunt dreams, the Night Warriors have one specialist individual who can transfer a team back and forth through the dreamscape and each Night Warrior has special powers while there. In the real world, the Night Warriors are just regular humans, so often their enemies can rampage for a significant amount of time before they can hunted successfully in dreams.
• The eponymous Red Room is one of these, hunting down monsters as well as covering up the supernatural for an Ancient Conspiracy. Part of protagonist Derek's problems is he'd rather be doing the former than the latter.
• The Lakewalkers in The Sharing Knife exist to hunt and kill Malices (Blight Bogles).
• Played with in the Night's Watch from A Song of Ice and Fire. They were a prestigious Badass Army created specifically to defend the realm from magical ice demons called the Others (and their minions, the wights), but by the time the series begins, centuries of peace have led the organization to devolve into a severely undermanned Army of Thieves and Whores that no longer remembers how to fight the Others, let alone believes they exist. Although as the series goes on, they may be played straight, as the Others begin making their comeback, and dragonglass is (re)discovered to be very effective in fighting them.
• The eponymous witchers in The Witcher series hunt all kinds of monsters, but specifically those who invaded the world after the Conjunction of the Spheres. They would fall under the phlebotinum-powered subtype, since they are enhanced with potions and spells starting in childhood and have number of supernatural traits to complement their Training from Hell.

Live-Action TV

• Several in Buffy the Vampire Slayer; the Watcher's Council in England, a secret branch of the US Army known as The Initiative and later the Slayer's Army made out of Slayers as the name implies. They all capture and/or kill creatures loosely define as demons. Whilst the Council sees them as supernatural magical creatures, The Initiative thinks they are unknown animal life forms and treat them as such.
• Doctor Who:
  • UNIT is a military organisation which operates under the auspices of the United Nations, initially under the name of the United Nations Intelligence Taskforce until being renamed the Unified Intelligence Taskforce, alternately known as the United Intelligence Taskforce. Its remit was to investigate and combat paranormal and extraterrestrial threats to the Earth.
  • The Torchwood Institute (or Torchwood for short) is an organisation founded in 1879 to protect the British Empire (later Great Britain) from extraterrestrial threat, to capture the Doctor (whom Queen Victoria regarded as one such threat) and to secure alien technology for Britain.
• First Kill has The Guild, an ancient order that trains hunters to kill any monster they can find and keeps records of everything they know about killing them. Though it's not discussed in-depth in the first season, we're told they have various ranks (the Burns family are "Blades" while their friends are above them as "Helms") and they have an academy somewhere that gives hunters more training.
• Legacies has Triad Industries, a private organization that captures supernatural creatures and throws them into a pit of black goo that somehow also Unpersons them, leaving only the physical evidence of their existence but no memories. Originally, they were tasked with capturing only the evil supernaturals, but eventually the organization became corrupt and self-serving, tossing anyone they didn't like into the pit, including humans. Triad is also fully aware of the Salvatore Boarding School for the Young & Gifted but chooses to ignore them... for now.
• The Monster Warriors are a group of teenagers that who come together to battle monsters that have been brought to life by a former monster movie creator.
• In Supernatural, there is a loose network of hunters, with Bobby serving as mission control, and later we learn about the Men of Letters, which catalogue knowledge on supernatural entities. There's even an English Men of Letters branch separate from the US one, which later came into direct conflict with the American hunters. By season 14, the Winchesters have also managed to save an entire settlement from an apocalyptic hellworld by bringing them over to their own dimension, most of whom are then reconfigured into a massive hunter organization.
• The various attack teams in the Ultra Series that assist the Ultras (and whom their human hosts/forms are usually a member of) are prime examples of the Kaiju Killing Corps variation.
  • The SSSSP/Science Patrol from the original Ultraman.
  • The Ultra Garrison from Ultraseven, however unlike most of the other examples they're portrayed in a far grayer light with their actions often questioned and at times finding themselves at odds due to the weight of their actions. Heisei Ultraseven even shows that in an alternate universe where they were the only defense team, there were divisions among their ranks leading to corruption from various places.
  • MAT from Return of Ultraman.
  • TAC from Ultraman Ace.
  • ZAT from Ultraman Taro.
  • MAC from Ultraman Leo. Unlike most examples, they don't make it out alive of the series and are completely destroyed at the start of the last arc.
  • UGM from Ultraman 80. A notable accomplishment of theirs is that they get to defeat a Kaiju all on their own without help from 80 or Yullian, thus proving mankind can now defend themselves from Kaiju without the need for Ultraman.
  • UMA from Ultraman: Towards the Future.
  • WINR from Ultraman: The Ultimate Hero.
  • GUTS from Ultraman Tiga and it's successor Super GUTS from Ultraman Dyna
  • GUARD and its sub-organization, XIG, serves as this in Ultraman Gaia, the sheer vastness of their forces lead to several squads receiving rotating focus across the series.
  • HEART from Ultraman Neos.
  • EYES from Ultraman Cosmos, though they're far more peace-oriented. In the same series JDSF does serve as a more straightforward example.
  • TLT/Night Eyes from Ultraman Nexus which also employ Laser-Guided Amnesia to cover up the existence of Kaiju. In a variation of the usual formula, Nexus' deunamists/hosts are not members of the team... At least until Komon transforms into Nexus in the finale.
  • DASH from Ultraman Max.
  • GUYS from Ultraman Mebius who employ knowledge and equipment of past defense teams to improve their own tactics.
  • ZAP Spacy from Ultra Galaxy Mega Monster Battle is a variation, while they do fight monsters it is not their main job to do so.
  • XIO from Ultraman X, they also have powers and equipment tied to their Ultraman, X, which allows them to perform combination attacks and even boost X's power or use X's own techniques.
  • STORAGE from Ultraman Z, though they employ Humongous Mechas to fight kaiju with.
  • GUTS Select from Ultraman Trigger: New Generation Tiga, they're heavily based on the original GUTS and employ remote-controlled weaponry to fight kaiju with. They're also one of the few examples of a team deliberately modeled after a previous one, since its founder Mitsukuni Shizuma, was a member of GUTS in the past.
• In Wynonna Earp, the Black Badge Division (BBD) is a special U.S. Marshal division that works to keep the world safe from Revenants and Demons. They operate all over the world but are currently stationed in Purgatory, recruiting Earp heir Wynonna to help them kill and capture demons.

Podcasts

• The Pine Guard from The Adventure Zone: Amnesty, founded in 1988 to protect the little town of Kepler, West Virginia by hunting down the Abominations that come through the Gate around the full moon.

Tabletop Games

• The fittingly named Hunter: The Vigil is a game focusing on humans hunting various kinds of supernatural beings in a setting filled with them. While some of them act alone, or in small groups known as “Cells”, some cells have grown into large organizations, such fitting this trope. Overall, these organizations are divided between Compacts (regional groups who rely solely on mundane means to fight monsters) and Conspiracies (world-wide associations who have access to “Endowments” giving them supernatural abilities). In a twist on the trope, however, the monsters they fight aren’t Always Chaotic Evil- plenty of them are just as varied in personalities as humans (and a few of them might even be harmless or defend humanity), meaning these organizations are sometimes misguided or bigoted.
• In Vampire: The Masquerade Vampires have at all times had to deal with being hunted by humans aware of their existence. While individual vampire hunters are rarely more than a nuisance, groups of organized hunters can potentially pose a bigger threat, and even worse are the organisations that have the backing of an official government: The Society of Leopold is a secret division of the Catholic Church, which back in the Middle Ages led the "Shadow Inquisition" against Vampires and other supernatural creatures. In the 5th Edition, there is the Second Inquisition, a black ops international collaboration between the world's intelligence agencies.
• Atypical example: Monster Hunters from Feng Shui are former members of the Buro's elite Supernatural Entity Retrieval Units (SERUs), sent from the Buro's home juncture of 2056 into the Netherworld. Their objective, unlike many examples of this trope, is to capture demons from 69 AD and bring them back so that the CDCA, the Architect Mad Scientists that create arcanotech, can turn them into Abominations, the altered demons that the Buro uses to fight its wars. They use a twisted hybrid of magic and technology called arcanowave technology that both gives them an edge against the monsters they face and sends bent magic into their system whenever they use it, and which threatens to turn them into Abominations themselves if they use it too much.
• Warhammer 40,000:
  • The Inquisition is one organization with three major branches, each dedicated to the destruction of a different threat to humanity:
    • The Ordo Malleus deals with the Threat Beyond, facing down daemons and other Warp-related phenomena.
    • The Ordo Hereticus deals with the Threat Within, rooting out heretics, mutants, and renegade psykers.
    • The Ordo Xenos deals with the Threat Without, investigating and eliminating alien influence and plots.
  • The Deathwatch is an organization made up of veteran Space Marines from different Chapters who work with the Ordo Xenos to provide the kind of concentrated firepower that mere humans can't provide.

Video Games

• In Alien Shooter, similar to the better known X-COM and Earth Defense Force the Earth has an umbrella anti-alien task force known as United Earth Forces. In Alien Shooter TD, you lead an affiliated team (possibly milita) called "Opposition to Extraterrestrial Aggression" which gets funding and supplies from the aforementioned larger group.
• In the Dragon Age series, the Grey Wardens are an international task force dedicated to fighting the darkspawn, the monstrous descendants of the survivors of a doomed expedition to conquer Heaven, who were mutated by the Maker (and/or the Corrupted Throne) for their hubris. Officially, Grey Wardens can conscript anyone, from nobodies to serial killers to even reigning kings, though practically they don't usually get choice picks. Grey Wardens are at the height of their political power during a Blight, a period of apocalypse when the darkspawn manage to find a titanic dragon called an Old One and infest it with their corruption until it goes mad and attacks the surface. This is because the Grey Wardens have partaken rituals that give them the power to permanently kill an Old One, who has Resurrective Immortality otherwise.^note When an archdemon dies, it automatically latches onto the nearest entity infected with Darkspawn corruption and reincarnates, by possessing them as a host and then magically growing them back into their original titanic and draconic form. Except, if that entity is a Grey Warden, then they've been forced into a body that has been prepared to self-destruct, mutually destroying both the archdemon's pattern and the unfortunate Grey Warden.
• Dragon Project is yet another mobile Gacha monster hunting game where the Kingdom of Heiland hires teams of hunters to take down mighty beasts called Behemoths. Hunters can use the tanky Sword And Shield, the mighty Greatsword, the precise Spear, the agile Dual Blades, and the ranged Bow, depending on the Behemoth they're fighting. To make the job easier, hunters also wield powerful Magis that offer them extra magic damage, healing powers, and supportive buffs.
• Earth Defense Force has the global anti-alien army, the E.D.F battling everything from giant ants sent by aliens to extra-terrestrial Giant Robots
• The Elder Scrolls
  • Throughout the series and in background lore, there are numerous such organizations. Vampire hunter organizations are an especially popular type, mainly in western Tamriel, where knightly orders of all kinds thrive in High Rock and Hammerfell. Were-creature hunter groups are likewise quite popular.
  • The Blades got their start based off of the Akaviri Dragonguard, hunting and slaying dragons in service to a Dragonborn leader. With the presumed extinction of the dragons, their role shifted to become spies and bodyguards for the emperors of Tamriel.
  • In Morrowind, these duties fall to the Tribunal Temple's Church Police, which is dedicated to the worship of the Tribunal, a trio of Dunmeri Physical Gods. What they hunt includes vampires, necromancers, Daedra worshipers, Ash and Corprus creatures, and many more. Their most elite soldiers are the Buoyant Armigers, warriors hand-picked by Tribunal deity Vivec himself. They tend to primarily operate in Vvardenfell's harshest environments, including Molag Amur and within the Ghostfence.
  • The Order of the Virtuous Blood in Oblivion is an organization of vampire hunters in name only, who admit that they don't actually have the resources to hunt vampires. They are unaware that the sewers beneath Imperial City are crawling with them, that their leader is a vampire, and that the man accused of being a vampire isn't one; if the player character is a vampire, they miss that too.
  • Skyrim:
    • The Vigilants of Stendarr are a militant order of priesthood that dedicate themselves to hunting anything Daedric, witches, werewolves, and any other supernatural threats they find. The order was established following the events of the Oblivion Crisis, with the intent of preventing such calamities in the future. They're mostly benevolent, generally doing acts of good, but have some Knight Templar traits as well, such as demanding that travelers hand over Daedric artifacts when they are found, even if the artifact in question comes from one of the less-malevolent Daedric Princes.
    • The Silver Hand is a particularly ruthless group of werewolf hunters. Armed with silver weapons and often carrying potions/items which cure disease in the event they are infected, they hunt, capture, torture, and kill any werewolves they find. They are also known to attack non-werewolves who stumble into their strongholds, making them little better than bandits.
    • With the return of the dragons, the surviving Blades go back to their dragon-hunting roots in service to the Dragonborn.
    • The Dawngard DLC allows you to join the titular vampire hunting organization. When the particularly ambition clan of vampires they hunt comes into contact with the Skyrim Vigilants of Stendarr branch, the Vigilants are very quickly all but wiped out. You can lead them to victory over the vampires or join the vampires to wipe out the Dawnguard.
• EXTRAPOWER: Attack of Darkforce has multiple of these:
  • PMEC: A general monster-hunting company founded and funded by Platinum, who is joined by her friends Kurogane and Emerald. Enjoys a Friendly Rivalry with Fei and Ri=ko given the occasional overlaps in their targets.
  • SPICA: A mercenary organization led by Werner von Gerstenbüttel employing tactical and scientific experts. They focus on fighting the Bem, a parasitic species that assimilates humans and transforms them into grotesque monsters. Employs Gradius, a bem, as a weapon against his own species.
  • Kinkreikan: Technically a secret organization that participates throughout global politics, commerce and intelligence, they employ Fei Hong Rong and Ri=ko to eradicate monsters in East Asia, frequently Jiangshi created by Master Wu.
• Freedom Wars is, you guessed it, another monster-hunting game, except it takes place in a resource-starving Dystopia. The Panopticon's Sinners are sent out on missions to take down skeletal robots called Abductors to clear their 1,000,000 year sentence. To make their jobs easier, Sinners carry an Ibara Thorn that allows them to swing around the battlefield, drag Abductors down, stun Abductors, create barriers, and heal allies. Sinners are also equipped with ranged weapons like Sub-Machine Guns, Assault Rifles, Sniper Rifles, Shotguns, Laser Guns, Homing Rocket-Launchers, RPGs, Grenade Launchers, Miniguns, Web Cannons and Flamethrowers. If the Sinners need some melee combat, then Light Swords, Chainsaws, Kukris, Knives, Traditional Buster Swords, Laser Blades, Katanas, Massive Clubs, Spears, Bidents, Drill Lances, and Staves will suffice.
• God Eater Burst is about the God Eaters of Fenrir. They are conscripted for their compatibilty to the God Arcs — weapons that come as swords or guns, with some able to switch between the two. They use these to fight the Aragami organisms made up from colonies of Oracle Cells which eat and take the appearance of whatever they eat. They can only be damaged by other colonies of oracle cells. Which is what the God Arcs are made up of, making them technically Aragami as well. God Eater 2 features The BLOOD Squadron who are still teenagers. There are also new God Arc types the Boost Hammer and Charge Spear and Shotgun.
• Honkai Impact 3rd has several of these throughout history, thanks to the cyclic nature of the Honkai threat.
  • Schicksal is the primary organization that has led the fight against the Honkai throughout the centuries, originating in 7the century Europe and heavily intertwined with the Christian Church. The organization has long been led by House Apocalypse, and supported by the exceptional warriors born from Houses Kaslana and Schariac. The organization makes use of special anti-Honkai weaponry and enhanced soldiers known as Valkyries. The majority of the cast are Schicksal Valkyries studying at St. Freya Academy, an Academy of Adventure that trains Valkyries.
  • Schicksal America's branch split off in the mid-20th century, reforming itself as Anti-Entropy. This organization focuses on scientific advancements to fight the Honkai, and deploys unmanned Mecha to fight instead of relying on enhanced human soldiers. It is notably led by Welt Yang, a Herrscher fighting for humanity against the Honkai.
  • In the Previous Era, Fire MOTH was the military and scientific organization that fought against the Honkai. It used incredibly advanced technology and human experimentation, creating the MANTIS soldiers by implanting humans with Honkai Beast genes. The surviving MANTIS soldiers, the Flamechasers, would go on to play vital roles in guiding humanity's fight against the Honkai in the current era.
  • World Serpent is a shadowy organization formed by some of the surviving Flamechasers, dedicated to using whatever means necessary to defeat the Honkai. It takes a mostly hostile role towards the other organizations, due to its extreme methods and fantatical devotion to victory over the Honkai at any cost.
• Kingdom Hearts:
  • The series has the Keyblade Wielders with their Keyblade vs Heartless/Unversed/Nobodies/Dream Eaters. The organization part is covered by the first keyblade wielders who fought in the Keyblade War, a legendary conflict that involve factions of those who sought light, darkness, balance, and those who just wanted power. Although the trio of Terra, Aqua, and Ventus counts since they exclusively hunted down Unversed in Kingdom Hearts: Birth by Sleep. the Organization XIII is also this, but only in Kingdom Hearts: 358/2 Days. Keyblades are Swiss-Army Weapon that function as a Cool Sword and Magic Wand. it is also capable of transforming into a "Keyblade Glider" which is exactly what it sounds, or other weapons like bazookas. though mostly known as the most effective weapons against creatures of darkness, which are The Heartless as they consume people's "hearts": Nobodies (introduced in Kingdom Hearts II),^note who are born when a Heart is swallowed by darkness and becomes a Heartless. They are the remaining parts left behind by the heart: the body, giving a Nobody form, and the soul, giving the Nobody life. the Unversed of Kingdom Hearts: Birth by Sleep,^note formed from the negative emotions produced when Vanitas was created from Ventus. and Dream Eaters who are a species of creature introduced in Kingdom Hearts 3D [Dream Drop Distance].^note As their name suggests, they consume dreams. They fall under two major categories, Nightmares , which eat good dreams and plant bad ones, and Spirits, which eat bad dreams.
  • Interestingly enough, Xehanort discusses this exact trope when gloating to Mickey. He actually wants to draw more Keyblade wielders out of the depths of space which Maleficent hasn't ravaged, so he can restart a long-dormant war. He's counting on there being more of these, based so far from the one of which he was a part that he hasn't interacted with them directly. He wants to use them to fulfil the summoning criteria for a blade that can open the route to the titular Kingdom Hearts so he can restart civilization. However, in the final game of the Dark Seeker arc, he fails to do so. All of the Keyblade wielders he finds are people he already knows of, and none of them are really this trope.
• In Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning, the Warsworn were originally the Firstsworn, an order dedicated to hunting down the chaos demons known as Niskaru. After the threat of the Niskaru was apparently defeated, the order lost its sense of purpose and eventually rebranded itself as a mercenary order that fights for the highest bidder. The Warsworn faction questline sees the Niskaru threat re-emerging, culminating in the Fateless One and the Warsworn facing the very same threat (a Niskaru Lord) that the Firstsworn's founder Eagonn faced. Depending on the player's choice at the end, the Warsworn either re-dedicate themselves to their original purpose of fighting the Niskaru... or are wiped out by the Niskaru Lord's new champion, the Fateless One.
• The world of Lapis Re:LiGHTs has Flora Girls' Academy and the other schools across the world that train, educate, and coordinate the operations of Magical Girl idols called "witches". Their primary duty is the extermination of the Magical Monsters that constantly plague humanity, alongside investigating supernatural activities, and finally performing "Operas" which help power city infrastructure through song and dance.
• The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom: Following the increase of the population of monsters (derived from the resurrection of Ganondorf), a number of Hylian soldiers have begun to form a society of crusaders (with their base of operations being the Lookout Landing) in search of monster camps across the land of Hyrule to raid them. How Link can help them is twofold: He can head to the whereabouts of the crusaders to plan a raid strategy and get rid of the monsters (usually led by a Boss Bokoblin, which serves as the leader and also the most powerful target), receiving rewards for lending his services; and he can also receive quests in the Lookout's underground shelter to hunt specific boss monsters lurking in the overworld (Molduga, Hinox, Frox, etc.), also receiving rewards for succeeding.
• In the Monster Hunter games, an organization of hunters known as The Guild hires people so they can find and kill (or capture, depending on the case) large monsters, among which Elder Dragons are the biggest priority due to their exceptional level of danger. From a meta perspective, the hunters hired are the players who connect online (or locally, depending on the game; the fourth generation games feature both options) and play together to complete the hunting quests.
• The main casts of Persona 3 and 4 consist of groups of teenagers (with some exceptions) who can summon Personas, which is necessary to defeat Shadows. However, while 4's Investigation Team mainly kills shadows in the course of rescue operations, SEES was specifically formed to hunt down Shadows and keep them from attacking people. Mitsuru Kirijo, a former member of SEES, would later form the Shadow Operatives to deal with Shadows on a global scale.
• Scarlet Nexus has the Other Suppression Force (OSF), an organisation of psionics who fight the Others. While 99,9% of the population are psionics in this world, the OSF accepts only those with the highest potential, and sometimes specifically scouts particularly talented candidates. They are rigorously trained and recieve various enhancements, that allow them to go toe-to-toe with the Others. As a result, even one OSF agent is far more efficient than entire squads of heavily-armored, firearm-wielding soldiers of National Defence Force. To preserve OSF members' strength for as long as possible, they are given Longevity Treatment, that stops their aging for several decades. The goverment plays up the heroic aspect of the organisation, and calls them the Scarlet Guardians, something that older members of the OSF usually grow to hate.
• Soul Sacrifice is, of course, another monster-hunting game where you play as a magic-wielding sorcerer/sorceress who takes down monsters horrific Eldritch Abominations called Archfiends; epic-class monsters who were once humans until they made a pact with the Sacred Chalice. There are three organizations of hunters, each with their own philosophy on what to do with the defeated monsters. Avalonians tend to Sacrifice their targets, executing them (painfully) and devouring their souls to gain new powers. Sanctuarians try to save their targets by Purifying them, and archfiends who respond well can be recruited as allies. And then there's the Grim, who do something to their targets, but it's never written...
• Styx: Shards of Darkness: The organization of C.A.R.N.A.G.E, which was specifically created to hunt goblins. Goblins are not particularly dangerous in themselves, but their numbers, coupled with the fact that they carry many diseases, are. So humans created these specialized squads to combat this threat.
• Super Robot Wars Z2 has the Original Generation DM (Dimensional Monster) Busters.
• Toukiden is another monster hunting game with a similar premise. Set in the land of Nakatsu. Your character is a Mononofu, One of the Warriors who specialize in fighting Oni. You and several other Mononofu live in and protect the village of Utakata from Oni attacks. Mononofu are armed with conventional weapons like Kusarigama, Bows, Longswords, and Gauntlets, but they also able to channel Mitamas— spirits of Ancient Warriors, to augment their abilities and attacks.
• XCOM is more properly the Extraterrestrial Combat Unit, a secret multinational organization dedicated to fighting against an Alien Invasion. They're by no means the only group resisting the aliens, and the world's conventional militiaries are doing their best, but XCOM is the only faction with the expertise to reverse-engineer the aliens' technology to eventually fight them on equal footing. The downsides are that XCOM's resources are limited and highly dependent on keeping the Council of Nations backing the group happy, and they don't have the manpower to be everywhere at once, leading to Sadistic Choices over which concurrent crisis to address.
• While the military organization BLADE (acronym of "Builders of the Legacy After the Destruction of Earth") in Xenoblade Chronicles X has different functions, two of the divisions that constitute it are explicit Creature Hunter Organizations: The Harriers and the Interceptors. Since the planet humanity crash-landed into (Mira) is infested by dangerous lifeforms (known as Indigens), their function is to exterminate any monster or entity that is considered too dangerous for the survival of humans. Harriers focus on the Tyrants (seemingly normal creatures that have buffed strength and skills), while Interceptors seek to kill the creatures that approach New Los Angeles.
• The extinct-animal expanded versions of Zoo Tycoon give you the option of adding a Dino Capture Team to your zoo, whose team members round up and tranquilize dinosaurs that escape their exhibits and go on property-destruction rampages.

Web Animation

• Helluva Boss: D.H.O.R.K.S. are an antagonistic example. In their pursuit of uncovering the truth about things that may be related to Hell, they're also a government agency that hunts demons. Unlike most examples, their goal is to break the Masquerade rather than uphold it — fortunately, they're not all that smart.
• RWBY: The Huntsman Academies are a system of combat schools that are designed to train students to become Huntsmen. Huntsmen aren't just trained to fight with Dust and highly customised weapons, they're also trained to manipulate their Auras and unlock Semblances, effectively making them "super-soldiers" when compared to ordinary people and standard military. The job of Huntsmen is to protect the people from the Creatures of Grimm that swarm the world and try to destroy humanity's existence. A Huntsman's first duty is to the people, so they're expected to remain free of Kingdom allegiance or politics.

Webcomics

• The Hunters of Salamanstra by John Joseco features The Swords of Ariel, one of several hunters guilds in this comic's world. Main character Kessah is a junior member of said guild, working her way up the ranks, trying to live up to the reputation of her late sister, Diana, "The White Wolf".^*It should be noted that Diana was stated to be killed not by a monster, but by a rival guild.
• One-Punch Man has the Hero Association, an organization that coordinates the heroes and their efforts against the monsters that pop up just about every other day, classifying them by threat level (Wolf, Tiger, Demon, Dragon, and God), and warning civilians about monster attacks so they can evacuate. The heroes themselves get paid by the Association, leading to a very toxic working environment where the less scrupulous heroes are more interested in their own rankings than keeping people safe.

Websites

• The Federal Vampire & Zombie Agency, as the name implies, deals with vampires and zombies.
• One of the many roles filled by the SCP Foundation. However, the Foundation isn't in the business of killing monsters, instead preferring to capture, contain, and study them for scientific research; they will only destroy anomalous entities as a last resort if they're far too dangerous and unpredictable to be reliably imprisoned alive. Their main rivals, the Global Occult Coalition, have the same goal of hiding all things paranormal from the world, but they prefer to do so by destroying supernatural threats with brute military force.

Web Videos

• Critical Role:
  • The Slayer's Take in Vasselheim is an organization that takes contracts to hunt down dangerous monsters and harvest valuable resources from them. They also serve as one of Vasselheim's first lines of defense, but they only mobilize if the price is right. Vox Machina (minus Pike) become official members over the course of the "Trial of the Take" arc, during which they proved their worth by tracking down and killing a Rakshasa and an Adult White Dragon.
  • There's also the Claret Orders, an organization of Blood Hunters (and the primary example of the homebrew class of the same name) who use Blood Magic in conjunction with their extensive knowledge of the supernatural and martial skill to hunt down supernatural threats. They're also technically outlawed in many party of the world where they operate and have to work covertly. They're also explicitly inspired by The Witcher, of which Matthew Mercer is a fan.

Western Animation

• Filmation's Ghostbusters, the lesser known animated series falls under the same premise as the other Ghostbuster organizations described below..
• From Generator Rex there is Providence, a privately funded organization created to cure, contain or kill E.V.O.s. These are mutants accidentally created after the Nanite Event that 90% of the time rampage through any city/town they find given they are not sentient anymore and can't control themselves.
• The Real Ghostbusters, especially because the word "ghost" is very broad, in one episode they even deal with Cthulhu. Also the sequel series Extreme Ghostbusters.
• The Sea Beast: Downplayed. Sea monster hunting crews are basically the equivalent of privateers- they are employed by the royal family but otherwise operate with little oversight. A central part of the plot is the royals' impending decision to build a navy directly under their control for monster-hunting, making the old hunting crews obsolete.

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